Jinkies! Jeepers! ‘Daphne And Velma’ Are Getting Their Own Live-Action Prequel Movie

Warner Brothers is giving the ladies of Mystery Inc. the spotlight in their own live-action direct-to-video prequel movie, fittingly entitled ‘Daphne and Velma’, set before the original Scooby Gang came together to debunk fake supernatural occurrences. The movie is now shooting in Atlanta with a 2018 release planned.

“Daphne and Velma” tells the story of Daphne Blake and Velma Dinkley before they team up with Scooby and the rest of the Mystery Inc. gang. The mystery-solving teens are best friends but have only met online — until Daphne transfers to Velma’s school, Ridge Valley High, stocked with high-tech gadgetry by the school’s benefactor, tech billionaire Tobias Bloom. While their peers vie for a coveted internship at Bloom’s company, Daphne and Velma try to uncover the reason why the school’s brightest students are disappearing — only to emerge again in a zombie-fied state.

Peter Girardi, executive vice-president of WB’s Blue Ribbon Content said, “We wanted to give the audience a new take on these two familiar faces, who are fan favorites in the Scooby-Doo universe.”

The film will be produced by Blondie Girl Productions, headed by Ashley and Jennifer Tisdale. (You may remember Ashley as mean girl Sharpay in Disney’s ‘High School Musical’ franchise as well as her own spin-off movie.) The sisters issued a joint statement declaring:

“Blondie Girl is committed to telling stories from a female perspective and we could not be more thrilled to give Daphne and Velma their own story. It’s so exciting to partner with Warner Home Entertainment and Blue Ribbon Content to introduce a new generation to the smart, charismatic, fearless females that we all know and love.”

Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

Sarah Jeffrey appears as Daphne. Most recently, she starred on the police drama ‘Shades of Blue’ as Jennifer Lopez’s daughter. The series has been renewed for a third season, so she is likely to return in that. She also filmed a role in the revival of ‘The X-Files’ which will return next year. She previously had regular roles on the series ‘Rogue’ and ‘Wayward Pines’. To younger viewers, she may be best recognized as Princess Audrey, the daughter of Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) in the Disney TV-movie ‘Descendants’. She also voiced Audrey in ‘Descendants: School of Secrets’ and ‘Descendants: Wicked World’.

Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

Her costar, Sarah Gilman, also has a Disney background. Gilman, who portrays Velma in ‘Daphne and Velma’, previously headlined the Disney series ‘I Didn’t Do It’. She then played one of Tim Allen’s daughters on the sitcom ‘Last Man Standing’ and had a recurring role on truTV’s ‘Those Who Can’t’.

This marks the third live-action, straight-to-video ‘Scooby-Doo’ movie, after 2009’s ‘Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins’ and ‘Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster’ the following year. Both movies were notorious for the casting of brunet Robbie Amell as the normally-blond Freddie. Of course, before these, there were two theatrical movies, in 2002 and 2004, in which Sarah Michelle Gellar played Daphne and Linda Cardellini played Velma.

Warner Brothers is also developing an animated ‘Scooby-Doo!’ theatrical film entitled ‘S.C.O.O.B.’ which was originally slated to be released in 2018 but was later pushed back to 2020. It is the first part of a Hanna-Barbera shared universe.

No word on exactly when ‘Daphne and Velma’ will hit DVD. Are you interested to see a movie that focuses on just the Scooby gals?

Jax Motes

Jax's earliest memory is of watching 'Batman,' followed shortly by a memory of playing Batman & Robin with a friend, which entailed running outside in just their underwear and towels as capes. When adults told them they couldn't run around outside in their underwear, both boys promptly whipped theirs off and ran around in just capes.